Parkway Deli Visited 11/26/2012 3.5 Forks

Parkway Deli 8317 Grubb Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20910

I would have never associated the words "Jewish deli" with "Maryland".  But after my trip with Elissa to Parkway Deli I was quite surprised that there does exists a true Jewish deli in Maryland that rivals those in NYC like Katz's and 2nd Ave.  I would have never discovered this place if Elissa hadn't mentioned it.  It's literally in this random strip mall in the suburbs and on the outside it just looks like a regular deli and not a restaurant.  But then you walk into the deli and go to the back and there is this whole diner/restaurant.

It's quite a mom and pop operation and not super done up or fancy which is exactly what it should be.  It's a good old school place for a good old school meal.  The menu is overwhelming and is about 5+ pages long of delicious sounding deli sandwiches, soups, salads, and breakfast specials with a specific slant towards classic Jewish fare like matzoh ball soup, smoked whitefish, lox, blintzes, potato pancakes, etc.  I had no idea if I should order a roast beef sandwich or a lox plate.  In the end I chose the latkes, nova and eggs (I ordered my eggs over easy) for $9.35 and Elissa and I also split the cheese blintzes with sour cream and strawberry and blueberry syrup for $6.65.  As I watched everyone else get their food, I got really so excited for our food.  All the food that I saw was on this huge eye popping scale so I was expecting my dish to be the size of my entire plate.  So I was pleasantly surprised when my food looked very manageable to eat.  I will say that I haven't had tons of experience with latkes but the ones I have had in the past didn't look like the one I got.  The ones I've had in the past are made with shredded potatoes, pretty flat in appearance and crispy in texture.  These, however, looked like they were made with ground potato, shaped into a ball, deep fried and was very heavy in texture.  It wasn't bad just not what I expected.  I enjoyed the lox and happy to have found a place outside of NYC that serves fresh lox.  But the best part of the dish was the perfectly fried egg.  It was super yolky and the whites were fried but not overdone.  I just wished the potato pancakes were lighter and crispier instead of the doughy and heavy ones that I got.  The cheese blintzes were super fresh and nice and warm when they came out.  I actually kind of wished that the filling was a bit sweeter because it tasted it just a bit too light.  I had to dunk them in the sour cream and fruit syrups to get the flavor kick it needed.   Surprisingly I have never had matzoh ball soup before in my life and I got to try Elissa's matzoh ball soup and thought it was nice and cozy and homey feeling.  I can totally see why people love matzoh ball soup on a cold night or when they are sick.

I love the fact that this kind of place exists outside of NYC.  It's pretty unique to the Maryland area and I would totally come back to try a bunch of other items on the menu.  I also want to give a shout out to the staff there.  They were super sweet and really nice and really gave the whole diner a nice family feel.  Total bill: $42 total with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Matuba Japanese Restaurant Visited 11/24/2012 3 Forks

Matuba Japanese Restaurant 4918 Cordell Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814

So I wouldn't recommend going to a sushi restaurant after watching the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi unless you're going somewhere like Sushi of Gari because any other type of place will skew your thinking of what you're eating.  I had watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi the night before and anyone who has seen the movie will know that it literally makes your mouth water and makes to run over anything that gets in your way of putting sushi in your mouth.  Of course the quality of the sushi featured in the movie is beyond top notch and there are very few places of that caliber anywhere in the world, so it does put an unfair expectation level on any place you try. 

My mom and I had actually originally planned on having lunch at this place called Grapeseed in Bethesda but it was closed for lunch on Saturday.  So I noticed that there was this sushi place across the street and suggested that we try it out.  I knew it wouldn't be 5 star quality but I was craving sushi so badly after watching the movie that honestly any sushi place would have been fine with me.  The place is totally fine and your standard mom and pop type of sushi place.  It's definitely not high end or sleek or even what I would say is a hidden gem like Sushi Yoshi.  It's just your run of the mill sushi place that has lots of lunch specials that totally has it's place in the sushi spectrum.  My mom and I both ordered the sushi/sashimi lunch special ($16.95) and the fried oyster appetizer ($7.50).  I will say that the one unique thing about this place is that has a "salad bar" that is all-you-can-eat if order more than $6.50.  The use quotation marks because it's literally a slow budget fixin bar shoved in the corner.  They have all the ingredients of a typical green salad:  lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes,  carrots, carrot ginger dressing, bean sprouts,  and some raw and fried tofu.  I have a soft spot for the green salads that you get at sushi places, so I was secretly a bit thrilled that they had an all-you-can-eat bar.  I probably got about 3 servings of salad.  The fried oyster appetizer was surprisingly well done.  I was expecting it to be over battered or super dry but the oyster inside was a decent size and the overall bite was crunchy and not over done.   The sushi/sashimi lunch was pretty hefty as it came with 1 California roll, 1 piece of salmon sushi, 1 piece of tuna sushi, 1 piece of eel sushi, 1 egg sushi, and  9 pieces of sashimi (3 pieces each of salmon, tuna, yellowtail).  The quality of the fish was good...definitely not the level of a melt in your mouth but it did satisfy my craving.  After seeing the movie and having ok sushi, it makes you realize and appreciate how amazing real high grade sushi is and why it's so expensive.  All in all, Matuba got the job done and I was a big fan of the green salad buffet (which is pretty unique) but it's not the kind of sushi that Jiro would probably dream of.  Total bill: $50 for 2 with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp

Sushi Yoshi Visited 11/21/2012 4.5 Forks

Sushi Yoshi 101 Church Street NW, Suite B, Vienna, VA 22180

Usually when I come home to MD I have a few key staple restaurants I go to.  One of my favorite experiences is getting sushi at Tachibana.  I almost never miss out on going to lunch there when I come back to MD.  But this time I came home, my mom suggested trying out a new place that actually isn't too far from Tachibana.  I'm always game to try new things so I said "Let's go!" My mom said that she had to make a reservation which I thought was a bit extreme since it was lunch on Wednesday afternoon.  But I'm glad that she did because when we got there, they were basically pretty full and those who came without a reservation were left waiting for a bit.

The place is pretty tiny, about 9-10 tables total and about 6 seats at the sushi bar.  The menu is on the border of traditional and one of those Americanized places that has freakin cream cheese in their special rolls.  I usually hate places that have weird ingredients like mango or cream cheese but they did have a very good line-up of traditional, more pure rolls.  My mom got the chirashi ($12.95) and I got the sashimi lunch ($13.95) and then I also ordered a spicy crunchy scallop roll with avocado ($5.30).  I know I always say this when I leave NYC, but my god, the prices here are so freaking reasonable, I almost wanted to cry.  The lunch specials came with soup and salad (love that you get both and don't have to choose between the two).  The soup and salad are your basic sushi miso soup and green salad with carrot ginger dressing.  It's hard to get them wrong and they were perfectly fine here.  They served the scallop roll first which was great because I was starving and couldn't wait for all the food to come out at once.  I get that that a spicy crunchy roll isn't the most "pure" of rolls but I do need a little something with my rolls and I usually stick to simple ingredients like an avocado or cucumber.  This type of spicy roll is the kind with whole chunks of scallop with a small amount of crunch and heat.  It was amazing.  The scallop was super fresh and it came with the perfect amount of rice (I hate rolls that have too much rice - there should be just enough to hold the roll together but I shouldn't feel like I'm eating a rice dish instead).  The roll almost made me wished that I had ordered more rolls, but as soon as my sashimi came out, I was glad I didn't order anymore food.  For $13.95, there was 12 pieces of all kinds of different fish (salmon, tuna, yellowtail, white tuna, squid, seared tuna and seared salmon).  It was so incredibly fresh and everything was melt in your mouth.  I usually don't like squid sashimi but even this one was pretty damn good (crunchy but still tender).  But the surprising dish of the afternoon was the chirashi.  Usually this dish is just sashimi served on a bed of seasoned rice.  But here, they actually serve the raw fish on the side and the star of the dish is the HUGE bed of rice served with tons of "toppings" (as my mom calls it).   It's covered with the sweet egg, cooked pieces of tuna, lotus root, seaweed, and other vegetables.  It was quite a lovely dish to look at and I was shocked that all that food was $12.95 and a lunch size portion.

I left lunch thoroughly full and ready for a nap.  I was thrilled to have tried a new place but now my hometown sushi love is split between this place and Tachibana.   Oh well, there are worst struggles in life, right?  But the best part of this meal?  The total bill with tax was $34 for two people, which is such a crazy deal for all the amazing fresh fish.  I am definitely putting this on my home restaurant visit rotation.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Steak Frites Visited 11/17/2012 2 Forks

Steak Frites 9 E 16th St., New York, NY 10014

Steak Frites is one of those places that I've walked past a millions times in Union Square and it never really ever crossed my mind to go in.  Not because I had any preconceived notion about it but it was just one of those places that was always here and I figured I would end up there at some point in my life.  The time came this past Saturday when I and a few friends were wedding dress shopping with my good friend, Virginia in the neighborhood.

Steak Frites looks like a cute French bistro and usually French bistro places have pretty decent brunches.  This place also had unlimited mimosas, so that's not to like so far?  The menu was your basic bistro brunch of benedicts, omelettes, croque madams, steak sandwiches and mussels.  I opted for the Scandinavian benedict ($16)  and originally I just wanted 1 mimosa but I guess when you say you want a mimosa they just assume you want the unlimited meal because they kept re-filling my glass without really asking me.  That was a bit annoying but I guess there are worse things in life.  The other girls all got omelettes or a salad.  When my benedict came out I couldn't put my finger on what was missing but then it struck me.  They totally didn't finish putting the hollandaise sauce on the dish.  It's like the started because there was a little bit on there but it's no where near what's shown in the picture above.  How can you serve a benedict with just a dribble of hollandaise sauce? It's the most important part of the dish!  The overall presentation of the dish was really ho-hum.  I've seen better presentation at a TGI Fridays.  At least the good thing for them was that the egg was actually poached well and runny but the overall dish was just meh.  The fries were fine, nothing to really write home about.  I thought they would be the nice big steak fries, but they were more medium cut, super salty fries.  I didn't try anyone else's dish but honestly all the omelettes looked a bit sad.  Julie and Joanna both got the market vegetable omelette and Joanna had asked for no mushrooms.  When her omelette came out, it was just spinach and goat cheese.  So I guess when they say market vegetables they really just meant spinach and mushrooms?

When the bill came, the total was $34/pp which I thought was outrageous for a eh benedict and 3 glasses of weak mimosas.  For that amount of money, I would expect an amazing meal or at least strong cocktails.  I didn't really get either one here.

Photo Credit: Yelp 

BrisketTown Visited 11/16/2012 3.5 Forks

BrisketTown 359 Bedford Ave., (between 5th St & 4th St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

I was totally expecting to be wow'd by BrisketTown and to have it dethrone Fette Sau as my favorite BBQ place in Williamsburg.  It has been talked up to rave reviews in many of my favorite food blogs such as the New York Times, Eater, Gothamist, and Grub Street.  Even though I usually don't like to go to restaurants the first couple months of opening (they almost always need some time to work out the kinks), I just couldn't resist a new BBQ and had to go the first night it opened. 

Cicily and I met up at 6:30 right when they open up the line to non-pre-orders.  Over the summer, you were able to reserve your meat on line and then come into the restaurant to claim your meat.  Otherwise, the restaurant opens at 6pm and then is only open until when they run out of meat.  I was a bit worried that if we didn't get there early, we would be shut out but luckily it looks like they had enough meat that night until at least 9 or 10pm.  The restaurant is super super small, maybe about 8 or 9 tables max.  You walk up to the counter and there is basically one thing on the menu: brisket.  There are 2 cuts, either lean or fatty.  It's $25/lb and the super nice owner, Daniel, told us that for 2 people, he recommended about 1/3 to 1/2 a pound per person.  We decided to go for a mix of lean and fatty and got 1 lb total.  The only other things they serve there are potato salad ($4) and coleslaw ($4).  We went for the potato salad and a few slices of Texas white bread.  Now the issue with the seat yourself style of restaurants is that sometimes you can get your food and find that there is no where to sit.  I literally jumped on top of a group of people as they were leaving their seat.  Not my ideal way to enjoy a meal but when it comes to BBQ by the pound, it usually is easier to order yourself.  The food looked great and I was super excited to cut into it.  One problem.  There were no knives in the place.  Only plastic forks.  I ended up pulling most of the meat apart with my hands, which was fine, but a knife and some wet naps would have gone a long way here.  People around us were raving about the meat (the guy in front of us in line was already in line for 2nds) so I was ready to tear into it.  And you know what? It was good but my mind and stomach didn't explode from joy.  The lean meat was indeed lean and the fatty meat fatty (almost a bit too fatty - and not in the good kind of pork belly fatty) but the outside of the brisket had too much black pepper flavor for me - it was very in your face.  And while I know this may be sacrilege, I wanted some BBQ sauce to go with it.  It just seemed to be missing something that I couldn't put my finger on and I think it was the sauce.  While I appreciate that the pace was focused on one kind of meat that they did well, the reason I love Fette Sau is because not only can you get brisket but you can get ribs, pork belly, sausage and all kind of other delicious meats at the same time.  As they say, variety is the spice of life.  As for the potato salad, it was a nice side dish to help cut some of the meatiness of the main entree.  And the 1/2 lb per person was the perfect amount of food for 2 people as I was definitely more than full when we left.

For now the restaurant is BYOB which actually isn't so bad but it is nice to have some whiskey with your meat and it's a bit hard to go down to your local deli and buy a small size of whiskey.  So we opted for wine but a lot of people brought their own tall boys or 6 packs.  I will say that the waitstaff there was awesome (shout out to Alex for helping us in a wine bind) and really friendly.  Location-wise, it's a bit out of the way (it's in South Williamsburg - which I know is the new hot spot of Brooklyn so I guess it does make sense to be where all the action is these days).   Even though I thought the meat was good, I just didn't have the come to jesus moment I was expecting based on all the reviews.  But if you're a BBQ freak like me, I do think it's worth a try at least once.  To quote Cicily "It's good but I wouldn't go out of my way to come back here".  Knowing that Fette Sau is so much closer, I would tend to agree.  Total bill: $42.

Photo Credit: Free Williamsburg

Tue Thai Visited 11/9/2012 3.5 Forks

Tue Thai 3 Greenwich Ave., (between 10th St & Christopher St), New York, NY 10014

I have been to tons of restaurants near Greenwich Ave such as  Rosemary's, Whitehall, and Kingswood, yet have never noticed Tue Thai.  The reason is that there are no windows to the place.  There's a glass door but then the rest of it has this wood paneling that prevents you from seeing inside the restaurant.  They could get so much more business if they installed some giant windows so that people can see inside (and vice versa).   If Allison hadn't been there before, I would have walked right past it.

We walked in at 6:30pm on a Friday and it was completely empty.  But slowly the restaurant did start to fill up as we were eating and by the time we left it was pretty packed.  The menu here is pretty standard mom and pop Thai food with pad thai, pad see ew, fried rice, curries, and sautees.  While I do love fancy, high end food, there's something really comforting about a good pad thai or fried rice dish.  Allison and I split the grilled calamari ($7), papaya salad ($7), and the shrimp pad thai ($13) and since it was a bit cold I also got a wonton soup ($5) for myself.  The grilled calamari came out first and it reminded me how much I prefer a good grilled calamari dish to a fried one that you get a lot of bars.  This one was marinated and grilled with Asian spices and served with a spicy cilantro fish sauce and a mild sirracha.  It was a pretty tasty dish and it was a great starter dish.  It really makes me never want to eat a greasy calamari dish again.  Next came mine wonton soup and this came with 3 fairly large homemade chicken and shrimp wontons in a clear broth and bok choy.  It was a a good basic clear soup but they didn't cut up the bok choy which made it difficult to eat.  It would have been better if they had made them smaller and not so bulky to chew.  Next they brought out the pad thai and papaya salad.  The pad thai was nice and saucy and had great flavor.  It really hit the spot.  Meanwhile the papaya salad was a good standard salad served with cherry tomatoes, peanuts, and string bean with a lime juice dressing.  It could have used a bit more heat to it but overall all the components were fresh and just right.

All in all, this was a good non frills Thai place in the West Village.   I don't mean to make the place sound bare bones because it's not but given it's location it's definitely not super trendy either.  But the best part of the meal was that Allison had a Groupon for the place and the total bill with tip was only $10!  I usually am not a huge fan of restaurants that participate in Groupon but I gotta say that this deal actually did what its supposed to do for a restaurant.  Meaning, it introduced me to a new restaurant that I ordinarily wouldn't go to but now that I've tried it, I would come back again.

Photo Credit: Yelp 

Flying Saucer Visited 11/5/2012 3 Forks

Flying Saucer 1123 N California Ave., (between Thomas St & Haddon Ave), Chicago, IL 60622

Flying Saucer was another hippie-dippie type of brunch place in Chicago that Deanna and I decided to try right before my flight took off.  Unlike Victory's Banner, this one isn't run by "devotees" but instead only had 1 New Zealander basically running the entire place.  The poor guy had to wait on 10 tables, bus all of them and serve them.  So while I most definitely felt bad for him, the service was so god forsaken slow, Deanna and I were on the verge of serving ourselves coffee and getting our own silverware.   The only reason why I didn't give this place a lower ranking was because I really did enjoy my food and thought the whole diner kitchy decor was cute.  The inside reminded me of a old fashion yet hipster feeling diner.  It totally looked like a place that would fit right in in Williamsburg or the East Village.   

The menu here has a very healthy, yet has a weirdly Mexican slant to it.  For anyone who loves a good breakfast menu, this place will overwhelm you.  They have your basic omelettes, breakfast samplers and pancakes.  Then they also have tofu sweet potato hash, huevos volando, biscuits and gravy, eggs benedict, and several breakfast bowls - so it's definitely a wide variety of food.  Since I had spent the majority of my time in Chicago gorging on pork products and egg products, I opted for the la bazza bowl ($9.95) which is a vegetarian breakfast bowl.  It came with brown rice topped with two eggs, black beans, mixed sautéed veggies, tofu, kale , chihuahua cheese, sour cream and pico de gallo served with corn tortillas.  It tasted great and healthy.  I felt my cholesterol lowering with each bite of brown rice and tofu.  I should mention that the bowl is huge and I was able to split it into 2 separate meals.  The brown rice was nice and moist which is usually very hard to do with brown rice as it can easily get to be hard and dry.  Then there was a hefty amount of kale, which is my current favorite veggie so I was a huge fan of that part of the dish.  The mix of the cheese and sour cream also ensured that the entire dish was moist and delicious.  Essentially it was just a giant burrito bowl with some eggs thrown in which actually is totally fine with me.

All the other food on the menu also sounded  delicious and looked (based on my snooping of other people's food) great.  I'm not sure if it was because it was a weekday afternoon or if they were just cheap, but to only have 1 person working the restaurant just made a not so great customer experience.   Another watch out is that it's cash only, which is also usually a strike for me.  But the whole place was just so endearing and sweet looking (plus the fact that I actually had a lot of cash on me for the first time) that I don't want to dock it below 3 forks.  Total bill: $30 total.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Girl and the Goat Visited 11/4/2012 5 Forks

Girl and the Goat 809 W Randolph St., (between Green St & Halsted St), Chicago, IL 60607

I normally don't buy into a lot of restaurant hype but BELIEVE THE HYPE here.  That's right, it's a 5 fork kind of place.  I had been trying to get a reservation here forever and this time around I finally just gave up and called the Concierge Desk that comes with my Platinum Card.  Shockingly, they were able to secure a reservation but it was for 10pm on a Sunday night.  Deanna and I decided to take it anyways since we didn't have any plans for Monday and boy am I glad we decided to do it. 

It all started with their great service from the front of house.  Even though I don't mind eating late, 10pm to start dinner is still pretty late for me.  So I called them around 7:30pm to ask if there was any availability earlier in the night and they kindly told us that if we wanted to show up early they could accommodate us.  So we showed up at prime dinner time at 8pm and even though it was still very crowded, there were a few open tables and they were able to seat us within 10 minutes.  That's what I call great service because they could have easily said, "Too bad, your reservation is 10pm, so come in at 10pm" but they were able to be flexible and I appreciated it.  

The restaurant is situated in an industrial yet upscale part of Chicago.  It reminded me of DUMBO with all the warehouses and lofts but there are actually tons of great high end restaurants on this strip too. Inside,  the restaurant is pretty huge (with a gigantic open kitchen)  but it still had a nice and homey feel to it.  The decor is dark and trendy (lots of black furniture and dim lighting) but it still had a modern and accessible look to it.  

The menu is broken up into 3 sections: vegetable, seafood, and meat.  Everything is meant to be shared but the portions turned out to be fairly sizable.  Our waitress suggested 2-3 dishes each.  We decided to start with the Challah Back ($4) and Deanna ordered the roasted cauliflower ($11) and the mushroom ragout ($12) and I got the hamachi ($12) and the wood oven roasted pig face ($16).  The challah back is a warm loaf of challah bread served with bleu cheese butter and fennel tomato compote.  It was seriously out of this world.  The bread was so hot that it almost burned my hand.  It probably literally just came out of the oven.  The tomato compote was delicious and sweet and was an amazing combination with the bleu cheese butter.  The butter definitely had a bleu cheese flavor to it but it didn't have the overpowering taste that the cheese has on its own.  You wouldn't think that bread could blow your mind, but we literally devoured the entire loaf in about 10 minutes.  Next came the roasted cauliflower which was served with pickled peppers, pine nuts and mint.  It was roasted to perfection...crunchy but not raw and the peppers gave a nice heat to the dish.  The pine nuts and mint added a great aromatic flare to it as well.  I loved it and the serving size was perfect for sharing with multiple people.  Next came my hamachi crudo which was served with crispy pork belly bits, chili aoli and caperberries.  The hamachi is one of my favorite raw fishes and this one did not disappoint either.  It was super fresh and the salty pork belly was a nice touch to it.  I inhaled all 5 pieces in about 10 minutes.  Fabulous dish.  Next came the mushroom ragout which was served with sweet potato agnolotti, mushroom creme fraiche and capers.  It tasted like a warm stew or hearty pasta with the sweet potato offering a hint of sweetness.  It was comforting and felt cozy in my belly.  But the dish that the Girl and the Goat is most famous for is the pig face dish.  Not to worry for those who are sensitive to seeing an actual animal face on the plate.  The dish is basically chopped up pork served on a bed of potato stix, tamarmind sauce, cilantro, red-wine maple and topped with a sunny side egg.  The combination of the runny egg, salty pork and crunchy potato stix was like nothing I've had before.  It was an explosion of flavor and textures in my mouth.  So it thoroughly broke my heart when I couldn't finish the entire dish myself and had to leave a few bites on my plate.  

Despite only having 2 dishes each, Deanna and I were so full that we had to skip dessert.  Too bad.  Besides having great service from the host, our waitress was also awesome.  She was really honest with us when we were ordering.  When we rattled off what we were ordering, she told us that would be enough food for us.  Meanwhile other places train their waitstaff to encourage over ordering or up selling on beverages or dishes.  I loved that she put a stop to our ordering and if we had ordered one more dish, we probably would have been so full that we wouldn't have appreciated the food we did eat.  Our total bill ended up being less per person than our dinner the other night at Antico, which shocked me because the food was so much better here.  While I love love love most restaurants in NYC, Girl and the Goat is the one restaurant (besides a good deep dish pizza place) in Chicago that makes me super jealous that I don't live there.   It's one of the few affordable non-casual 5 forks places I've been to.  It's definitely worth all the pain and struggle of trying to get a table.  Good luck!  Total bill: $106 for 2 with tax and tip. 

Photo Credit: Yelp             

Storefront Company Visited 11/3/2012 2.5 Forks

Storefront Company 1941 W North Ave., Chicago, IL 60622

Storefront Company is a rather new restaurant on a pretty popular street in Bucktown.  But if I hadn't been looking for it in particular, I would have thought it was a jewelry store or something other than a restaurant.  That's because the outside of the restaurant has all this weird window dressing and items in the window instead of just having floor to ceiling windows giving people a peek inside the restaurant.  They should hire a new restaurant designer. 

The inside is huge, super spacious and very bright.  In fact, the only colors in the entire restaurant were black and white, which made the place feel a bit cold and not very cozy.  Since we had a fairly big party (4 adults and 2 children) they did kindly give us the large booth in the back of the restaurant.  This allowed the kids to kick and scream and not really bother too many people.  The menu here is an odd array of dishes and I can't quite figure out what type of cuisine they are going after.  They have a pancakes (pear, lemon and ricotta, and buttermilk), blue crab omelette, fried rice and egg, lamb burger, and chicken salad just to name a few.  Weird mix right?  While I generally would go for a more traditional brunch dish such as an omelette or eggs any style, I was strangely intrigued by the spicy veggie fried rice with 2 poached eggs ($11).  I was mainly drawn to this dish because I am obsessed with a traditional Thai fried rice that comes with a fried egg and I thought this could be a close dish.  Funnily enough, Deanna and Nima both got this dish too, so we were all pretty uncreative.  Luckily, Dave got the lamb burger ($12) and after seeing it, I kind of wish I had gotten that dish instead.

When the fried rice dish first came out, I was super excited because it looked great.  I saw 2 poached eggs over a bed of crunchy fried rice.  I excitedly poked the eggs hoping to see a super runny yoke.  Sadly when I poked the eggs, it was more like a hard boiled egg instead.  As many readers probably know, one of my biggest pet peeves in brunch place is a restaurant's inability to correctly poach an egg.  I mean that is one of the most basic cooking skills!  So despite the fried rice part of the dish being pretty darn good (it was crunchy like the bottom part of a paella that is scrapped off the bottom of the pan),  a runny yoke would have definitely made it a great dish.  Unfortunately it wasn't just my dish that had a bad yoke.  Deanna's eggs were also pretty well cooked so it seemed like it was more of a pattern than a one off issue.   But they did manage to fry the egg on Dave's burger pretty well because as soon as he bit into it, it oozed yoke.  I was so jealous looking at it.  I don't understand how a place can be so inconsistent with their egg preparation.  I should also mention that I also got a side of house cased maple sausage ($4) and honestly it was too sweet for me and didn't have enough of that meaty flavor to it.  But I will say that the size of the sausages were huge and you definitely get great bang for your buck when you order it.

As for service, our waitress was super sweet and nice but it took forever for our drinks and food to come and then it took a while to get our bill.  So in short, nice but slow service.   The place was an interesting find but the inability to poach an egg really put it on the lower end of the fork rating. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Antico Visited 11/3/2012 3 Forks

Antico 1946 N Leavitt St., (between Homer St & Armitage Ave), Chicago, IL 60647

Antico is one of those off the beaten track little Italian places in Bucktown that you probably walk past every day and think to yourself that you should stop by but don't.  This past Saturday Deanna, Soph and I were trying to find a place in the neighborhood that didn't require a 30 minute wait and Antico quoted us only a 20 minute wait.  Great!  We head over and while they did have a few tables available, it was also pretty bustling.   Despite being in a hipster part of town, the clientele was more mature and older, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend this place if you're looking for a rockin time.

As we sit down, I immediately noticed how charismatic our waiter was.  He was super chatty and engaging and I will say a great sales person.  Deanna and I ordered a glass of wine and he immediately tried to up sell us on the most expensive wine on the menu.  And you know what, mission accomplished because we did end up getting the $14 glass vs. the $7 glass.  He also described the all the specials with amazingly delicious detail that Soph and I jumped on the Mussels special ($12) without even asking how much it was.  As for the rest of the menu, there were about 8-9 antipasti dishes, 4-5 pastas and 8-9 main entrees such as ribs, lamb, pork, and veal.  I opted for the pan seared pork tenderloin with braised leeks in a red wine sage reduction ($24), Soph got the lamb chop ($28) and Deanna got the entree size pappardelle with wild mushrooms ($28).  Price-wise, all of these dishes are about $10 overpriced for what they were, especially the pasta dish. 

Our appetizers came out quickly and I was immediately not impressed with the mussel appetizer.  The waiter made the mussels sound like they were this amazing dish that couldn't be missed but it was essentially steamed mussels in white wine, so kind of your standard mussels dish.  For $12, the mussels themselves were pretty small and there weren't nearly enough of them for the dish.  As for the main entrees, they did fair a little bit better.  My pork tenderloin was a pretty large size and it was cooked to the right degree of tenderness.  The red wine reduction was a little bit overwhelming and the leeks were a bit difficult to eat but the pairing of the 2 flavors did go well with the pork.  I just didn't think the dish was worth $24 when you consider some other really outstanding food you can get for much less.

All in all, Antico is still a cute neighborhood joint.  It could be a nice 1st date type of place or an every once in a blue moon visit, but with all the other amazing Chicago restaurants nearby and at these prices, you're probably better off being a regular at some other places.  Total bill: $143 without tip for 3 people.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Victory's Banner Visited 11/3/2012 3 Forks

Victory's Banner 2100 W Roscoe St. (between Hoyne Ave & Hamilton Ave), Chicago, IL 60618

I've had some pretty great brunches in Chicago so I was excited to hit up another spot while I was here this weekend.  Deanna had mentioned a few options and when she brought this place up, she had said that it was run by a bunch of "devotees",  I thought that she was joking.  But she also mentioned that the food was really delicious, so I said, What the heck?  When we got there I noticed that everyone was wearing a sari (and they weren't Indian), so that's when I realized that Deanna wasn't kidding when she said the place had a lot of "devotees".  The place seemed like more of a spiritual center with lots of pamphlets on meditation and a higher being than a restaurant, which is fine but just a tad weird.

The restaurant is also more like a cafe and the food is all vegetarian, mostly vegan.  I've actually been to a lot of places like these where the food is amazing and you don't miss the meat at all, so I was hoping this place would be like those.  At first glance, the menu here sounded amazing and I had a hard time narrowing down what I wanted to eat.  They have a lot of great sounding egg dishes and salads.  Since it was brunch I opted for the breakfast burrito which was a tortilla stuffed with 2 scrambled eggs, mushroom, red onion, red peppers, gouda, black beans and sour cream and served with organic salsa & brown rice on the side ($9.55).  Deanna got the Satisfaction-promise, which is 2 scrambled eggs with spinach, pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and feta ($9.45), except that Deanna got it with fresh tomato instead of sun-dried.  I also had this weird hankering for pancakes but didn't want to commit to a full stack and they were nice enough to bring my 1 single pancake.

As with all breakfast burritos I've had, this one was huge and just way too much food for one person.  I need to remember next time I"m at brunch to not order it because I never finish it and frankly all I really eat is the inside, which is essentially an egg scramble.  I was a bit disappointed that there didn't seem to be a lot of eggs in this one and the egg that was in it wasn't as moist or scrambled as I would have liked it.  Also the cheese on it wasn't melted at all and was kind of clumped on top.  I should have just gotten an omelet or some kind of egg scramble since I pretty much opened up the burrito and discarded the tortilla after 1 bite.   I did appreciate the brown rice as a healthy side as opposed to getting a bunch of potatoes but it would have been preferred it to have been inside the burrito instead.  Meanwhile, I was having a serious sweet craving and luckily the waitress told me that I could just get 1 small pancake instead of an entire stack which was music to my ears.   The pancake was made with oat bran and was the perfect serving size for what I was looking for.  It was perfectly fluffy but just a bit toasted on the outside for a bit of crunch.  The oat bran absorbed the syrup well without making it overly soggy and it just really hit the sweet spot I was trying to fulfill.   I tried Deanna's dish and I did like it more than my dish since it tasted more egg-y and just more breafast-y.  She also got an order of soy bacon and while it looked like a piece of soggy, sad fake bacon,  it was surprisingly good.  It tasted just like a piece of bacon but like the kind that doesn't have any fat or a meaty crisp to it.  But for fake meat, it was a fairly good copycat. 

Overall, I appreciated the healthy, hippie-dipping vibe the place was giving.  I wasn't totally annoyed with it, which normally I would, but they were so nice that it's hard to be cynical about it.  I definitely would get something other than the burrito and dare I even say that I would even consider getting a stack of pancakes, which is something I would never do but they were that good.  Total bill: $17/pp with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Belly Shack Visited 11/2/2012 4 Forks

Belly Shack 1912 N Western Ave., (between Cortland St & Winnebago Ave), Chicago, IL 60647

After a week of being trapped in my apartment due to Hurricane Sandy (although I am very very grateful that I had power and water during the whole ordeal), I was super happy to hightail it out of NYC and come to Chicago on a trip that was already pre-planned.  It was a bit of a harrowing experience getting to the airport, but I finally made it to my 2nd favorite city by 8pm.

Deanna and I met up at the Belly Shack which was right under the Western Ave Blue line tracks.  The place is super casual and more of a order at the counter type of place.  You would think that a place like that would have a seat yourself policy but instead there is a woman who assigns a table to you.  So I did have to wait about 10 minutes before she gave us a table and then we were allowed to go up to the counter to order.  The menu here is along the lines of Asian fused with Mexican.  It's similar to the whole hot trendy of Kogi in LA and Korilla in NYC but not in a food truck.  The menu has about 5 main entrees and then 5-6 side dishes.  It's a great place for meat lovers and vegetarians since everything can be made with either meat or tofu.  I opted for the Korean BBQ Beef dish ($9) which is basically bulgogi served with kimchi and flat bread and a Vietnamese iced coffee ($3).  I was a little bit skeptical of the food since I usually think that Asian food made my non-Asians isn't really all that good (of course there are some exceptions) and that I don't really do "fusion" food.  But honestly the only fusion part of my meal was that it came with flat bread.  Otherwise, it was pretty all around Korean.  One of the things that I love about Chicago is that generally the prices are still cheaper than eating out in NYC.  For $9, I got a pretty good sized dish that made me really full.  I was quite impressed with the kimchi.  It was tangy and sour but with the right amount of kick to it and it was very fresh tasting.  As for the meant, it was flavored correctly and you could tell that it was marinated with the right combination of onions, garlic and peppers.  The flat bread was nice and soft and made of the perfect vehicle to carry the kimchi and bulgogi in one bite.  I wouldn't go as far to say this place is better than an authentic Korean place in K-town, but it was still delicious Korean-inspired food.   Deanna got the boricua sandwich with tofu ($9) which was tofu, with miso sauce, and brown rice on a crispy plantain.  I had a bite and the combination of tofu and plantain was different but great.  I loved the fact that they gave you a huge chunk of tofu to make it seem as close to a meaty sandwich as possible.  I will say that it is super messy, so be prepared.

The clientele here was pretty hipster, so I felt like I had never left Williamsburg.  It's also BYOB which also makes it an appealing option.  It was the perfect meal coming off a flight.  Not too heavy but filling enough to fill your belly.  I also love that my entire meal was $13.  Ahhh, Chicago. How I miss you.

Photo Credit: Yelp